


As It Stands

by zeldadestry



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:49:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John likes to draw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As It Stands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silk_knickers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silk_knickers/gifts).



> Dear silk_knickers, the part with John and Derek is at the beginning of the story and can stand on its own, so you could stop reading after that, if you wanted!

John has never admitted to anyone, and never will, but, sometimes, when he can’t fall asleep, he reinvents the story of his life, imagines how it would change if he really were John Baum instead of John Connor. What if he weren’t destined to lead the resistance? What if he were just any other teenager, free to fuck up? Free to be, well, free. Just free.

 

Sometimes John goes for a run with Derek. Derek is faster, fitter, but John’s improving. The run is distracting, in a good way, the pound of his feet on the dirt, the burn in his lungs when they hit a particularly steep incline, the endless thump of his heart inside the cage of his ribs. Yeah, life is a blessing and life is a curse, his especially. And he knows he has no right to feel that way, not when people have died already, and so many more will in the future, to help him, to further his cause, but if he can’t be angry in his own damn mind, then where?

After their run, Derek drags John over to the pull-up bars, challenges him. How many can you do with your palms facing away from your face? How many can you do with your palms facing in? Derek works like the machines he hates, lets nothing deter him, muscles of his thick arms flexing, sweat dripping down his face.

When Derek pulls up the hem of his shirt to wipe across his brow John notices that, built as he is, there’s a softness around his belly, a little bit of fat over the muscle. It jolts John because that seeming vulnerability is actually awesome proof of Derek’s endurance and survival. John recognizes how amazing it is that Derek’s lived so long, aged enough for his metabolism to slow a little, for his body to begin to wear down.

They move on to push-ups, sit-ups, and leg lifts, and Derek manages to do three times as many as John can, and without wincing, too, and then they lie on their backs in the grass, underneath a tree so they’re in the shade, lie there until they’ve caught their breaths, until their bodies have relaxed from all the work they’ve just put them through. John lets his eyes fall shut, rests until Derek’s got a hand on each of his shoulders, rocking him back and forth to rouse him. “Come on, lazybones,” he says, and John follows him over to a little cart where a woman beams at Derek and serves them both hot dogs and bottles of water. “You want chips?” Derek asks, as he pulls a ten out of his pocket.

“Yeah,” John says, and looks at the different options, the ludicrous luxuries of life before Judgment Day, trying to decide between salsa corn chips, ranch corn chips, barbecue potato chips, and salt and vinegar potato chips. He chooses the salsa corn chips. They sit down cross legged in the grass, eyes wandering over everyone here, the dog walkers and kite flyers, the soccer players and Frisbee throwers, the sunbathers and the readers, the kids and their parents, the elderly and the teenagers, and Derek doesn’t say anything about the end, the fire and heat that will crumble skulls and incinerate bones so that there is nothing left but dust and John is so grateful that they can have this, no matter what comes next.

“You good?” Derek asks, when they’ve finished eating.

“Yeah,” John says, but his eyes drift towards the vendor selling ice cream. “Hold on,” he says, “I’ve got this one.” He buys them each a dreamsicle, laughs at Derek’s incredulous face after he’s caught the bar in his hands and examined the wrapper.

“Too cheap for a King Cone, Connor?”

“Quit complaining, Reese, this one’s my favorite.”

Derek tears off the wrapper and takes a big bite. “Kyle liked ice cream sandwiches best,” he says, around the vanilla and orange melting in his mouth.

“Good to know,” John says, and means.

A few minutes later, Derek frowns when he checks the clock on his cell. He gets to his feet and scrubs at his face. “We need to go. I’ve got something I’ve gotta do.”

John senses Derek’s reluctance to end their afternoon, same as his own. John looks down as they step off the grass to leave the park. Once they’re back onto the pavement, he can’t pretend anymore. He can’t pretend and yet how could he ever dare say to Derek that he doesn’t want this world to end? Derek has lived through it. Derek has already endured what John still feels, no matter how many times he tries to brace himself for the possibility, the reality of it, to be unbearable.

They drive home in the truck, the windows open. The radio’s on low, tuned to the hip hop station, and Derek nods his head along with the beat of a song John doesn’t recognize. He wonders if Cameron would know it if he hummed it to her. She picks up pop culture tidbits and sometimes announces them at random intervals as though she’s practicing a new technique for interacting with humans. The afternoon sun streams in strong through the windows and John watches the lines deepen around Derek’s eyes as he squints into the glare. John traces the tattoos on Derek’s right arm with his eyes, tries to memorize them in case there ever comes a day when Derek’s gone, a time when John wants, needs, to memorialize him, honor and make tribute to him, with the same ink in the same place on his own flesh. “We all die for you,” Derek said, once, but not in anger, only with acceptance. John slumps down in his seat, turns his gaze towards the road in front of them, his eyes glassy. “Don’t,” he wants to say. “If you ever have a choice, Derek, if you ever have a chance to save yourself, please, take it.” He could say it. It would make no difference. Derek can not be swayed. John is not surprised by how much he loves Derek for that devotion, though he doesn’t know how he can ever be worthy of it.

When they get home, John grabs a thick felt-tip pen and draws Derek’s tattoos from memory.

 

Riley drags him into an art supply store, one afternoon, because she loves to look at all the different colors in paint sets and John buys a couple sticks of charcoal and a pad of thick, cream colored paper. “Oh my god, can you draw?” she says, bouncing on her feet beside him. “Do you have super fantastic hidden secret talents?”

“I’m not any good at it,” John says. “I just like it.” They sit down on a bench and he sketches her, blends the charcoal with his fingers, which are covered in ash by the time he’s done.

“It’s nice,” Riley says. “Can I keep it?”

“Sure.”

 

He sketches his mom while she’s asleep on the couch. She’s holding onto a pillow, cradling it in her arms, against her chest, and he swallows past the tightness in his throat. He remembers a story someone told him once, about how Jesus’s mother held her son after he’d been brought down from the cross, how she hugged his corpse and cried because she remembered holding him as a baby. His mother always knew who John would be; even when she was pregnant she never had a chance to imagine other scenarios for who he might become, what he might do with his life, with his skills. All she ever had is what she has now, sore muscles, a battered body, perpetual tension and terror, and never, ever, a good night’s sleep. She hates for anyone to catch her napping during the day, but she’d be useless, otherwise. It’s probably the best sleep she ever gets.

His mom makes pasta for dinner. It’s a canned sauce, but she added three cloves of crushed garlic to it, chopped some parsley to sprinkle on top, and brings out a small wedge of parmesan for them to grate by hand. “This is awesome,” John says, talking with his mouth full.

“Yeah?” she says, smiling.

“Yeah.” John swallows his food and smiles back. “You’re awesome.”

His mom shakes her head at him. “Remember that the next time I give you an order.”

For dessert she scoops ice cream and heats up an apple pie from the grocery store bakery in the oven. They take their plates to the front steps and eat outside as the sun sets. His mom’s gun is within reach and John knows that anyone else viewing this scene would probably be unnerved by that, by its proof that vigilance is all they know. John doesn’t see it that way. John sees the dedication. Cameron comes into view. She’s been walking around the house, making sure the perimeter is secure. She looks up at both of them. “Did you like the pie?” she asks.

“It’s fine,” his mom says. Cameron nods at her, then turns towards John.

“Yeah, it was great,” John says. Cameron nods again and then continues on. “Why the sudden interest in baked goods?” he asks his mother.

“Because I gave her a list when I sent her to the grocery store.”

“So?”

“I didn’t put pie on it.”

John snorts. “I go through all the trouble and danger of capturing her, reprogramming her, and sending her back through time just so she can choose a dessert for us? Guess I really am some kind of genius.” His mom snickers. He can’t remember the last time he heard anything even approaching laughter from her. It feels like a victory.

After they go back inside, he shows her the sketch. “You did this?” she says, and she’s proud, awed, he can tell.

“Yeah.”

“It’s beautiful.”

Because you’re beautiful, he thinks. “Thanks.”

“Can I-”

“Yeah, keep it. It’s yours.”

His mom reaches out and holds his face between her hands, looking at him like she can’t even believe him, her luck. And if that’s not a phenomenal love, that she can feel fortunate he’s her son, even after her whole life has been absorbed by his, by caring for him, than what is?

John Baum, he tells himself, as he lies in bed that night, waiting for sleep. That was John Baum and his mother, just for a couple hours. That was a moment between John Connor and Sarah Connor in a different life, where they were the same people, but everything around them was different.

 

He buys a few pastels: red, blue, yellow, black, and white. Enough to make any other color he wants. It feels stupid and wonderful, wasteful and freeing.

“Where are you going?” Cameron asks, when she sees him getting ready to leave the house.

“To the beach.”

Cameron tilts her head to the side as though he might make more sense from a different angle. “Why?”

“Because I want to.”

“Why?”

“Look, I’m going. Are you coming with me or not?”

They don’t spend long there, maybe an hour and a half. When they first get there, he just lies down on the blanket he brought, listens to the waves, the seagulls, the shouts of kids playing in the surf. He digs his fingers into the warm sand and closes his eyes for a while. When he wakes, he strips off his shirt and his pants, runs down to the water in nothing but his boxers, dives in and lets the saltwater rush over him.

When he gets back out, Cameron’s standing still fifteen feet away, holding out a towel for him, her arm fully extended. People walking by stare at her but she, as usual, is either completely oblivious or choosing to ignore them. “Thanks,” he says, taking the towel from her and wrapping it around his shoulders.

“Life is a beach, I’m just playing in the sand.”

“What?” John says, shaking his head to get water out of his ears.

“It’s a line from a Lil Wayne song.”

“You’re priceless, you know that?”

Cameron pauses, no doubt trying to calculate her value, but what the hell’s the exchange rate between the pre and post apocalypse? “Unclear,” she concludes. “Depends on who is trying to buy and who is looking to sell. And price can mean more than just money. So can the word cost. Is it lawful to transfer ownership of a sentient, partially organic, being? Is it ethical?”

John rolls his eyes. “Yeah, we all know how concerned you are about what’s right.”

Cameron gazes blankly back at him. “Perspective is subjective,” she says, as though that ought to explain everything.

He doesn’t end up making any pictures, not like he planned. When he gets back to the blanket he’s tired again, gives in to his urge to just surrender, doze in the sun, knowing Cameron is watching, that she will let him know if anything happens, if they need to run, fight, whatever. When he wakes up again, the sun is beginning to set. He and Cameron watch until the sky is streaked purple and red and the sun burns orange as it descends. “We better go,” John says.

“Yes.” Cameron stands and John follows. “I understand now,” she says.

“What?”

“Why we are here.”

John smiles. “So you’ve solved the existential riddle of the universe? Good for you.”

“No. I understand why you wanted to visit the beach.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes. You’re going to remember this,” Cameron says, folding up the blanket and putting it into the bag. She throws the bag over her shoulder and wipes her palms across the front of her denim shorts to brush off the last grains of sand from her skin.

“What do you mean?” John says.

“There are moments from this time that you, future you, likes to remember. We talk about them.”

“We do?”

“You do. You tell me stories and I listen.”

“Do you ever tell me stories?”

“Sometimes.” She raises one of her eyebrows. “You don’t always like them.”

“Figures.”

As they walk to the truck, he takes the pastels and folded sheets of paper from his pocket and leaves them on a bench near the parking lot. Someone will probably come along soon enough and find them, an anonymous present from him for a person who doesn’t know that with every moment, every breath, they’re moving closer to Judgment Day, unless John and everyone who fights with him can stop it.

He turns around, walks backwards, slowly, so that he can see the ocean and the shore as he moves further away from them. Even being John Connor, his life as it stands is enough. What will be, whatever will be, is not now and right now this is what he has and what he could have, a life he’s never lived and will never know, isn’t worth as much. “Come on,” John says, spinning around to face the truck and jiggling its keys in his hand. “Let’s get home.”


End file.
